War Crimes Trials (Abridged Article)  Historical Film Footage

Victims of medical experiments testify during Medical Case

Nuremberg, Germany, December 20, 1946

[English, 2:28]

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 National Archives - Film

Transcript

Here the lateral soleus muscle which gives the calf its graceful curve. Follow the leg, here's the medial, here's the lateral. The lateral gives, the lateral...the graceful, normal curve. Now, the neurological examination. Will you please try to do this. The patient is unable to totally flex the foot, to elevate the foot upwards. Try to do it on the other side, if you will. Just show that you understand please. Like this. Up. Now, try to do it here. Okay. Dorsiflexion is completely gone.

I offer this X ray as prosecution exhibit number 215.

The, uh, most remarkable finding in, findings in Miss, Miss [Jadwiga] Dzido's case is, at first, marked atrophy of the right leg, including thigh, leg, and foot. Would you, please stand up, and will you gradually turn around? Very slowly turn around. You can compare here the two legs, and you notice the marked atrophy. You see the femur of this bone, of this leg, as compared to the other. ...without tendinous insertion. You can see this tendon here, strong tendon is absent on this side. ...show blueish discoloration, including, uh, indicating interference with circulation of the leg, probably due to loss of blood vessels.

The Medical Case was one of 12 war crimes trials held before an American tribunal as part of the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings. On trial were doctors and nurses who had participated in the killing of physically and mentally impaired Germans and who had performed medical experiments on people imprisoned in concentration camps. Here, concentration camp survivors Maria Kusmierczuk and Jadwiga Dzido, who had been victims of these experiments, show their injuries to the court as evidence.